Part 2 - Northern and Central India

The two castes connected with betel in India are Bara’ī (Baraiyā, Bārui) and Tambolī (Tamolī, Tamdī). Generally speaking, the former grows the plant, while the latter sells the leaves. This distinction, however, does not seem to be always observed. It appears that the Bara’ī hardly ever sells the leaves, while the Tambolī sometimes cultivates the plant.^[1] Sheering^[2] denies that the distinction prevails in Benares, and says that there the Tambolī sells areca-nut as well as pān, and appears to be more of a wholesale dealer than the Bara’ī. In the Meerut, Agra and Rohilkhand divisions the Bara’īs are replaced by the Tambolīs.

Crooke (op. cit., p. 181) quotes Abū-1-Faẓl, and comments on the passage about the leaves of a “chew” being tied with a silk thread.^[3]

He says:

“This is very much the modern practice, except that the two leaves are very generally fastened together with a clove. The conservatory in which the pān is grown is treated with great reverence by the grower. They do not allow women to enter it, and permit no one to touch the plant or throw the leaves into fire. Very often they are given rent-free holdings by rich landlords to tempt them to settle in their neighbourhoods.”

In his article on the “Bāruis” of Bengal, Risley^[4] tells us that on the fourth of Baiśākh (April-May) the patroness of betel cultivation is worshipped in some places in Bengal, with offerings of flowers, rice, sweetmeats and sandalwood paste. Along the banks of the Lakhya in Eastern Bengal the Bāruis celebrate, without a Brāhman, the Navamī Pūjā in honour of Uṣas (Ἠώς, Aurora) on the ninth of the waxing moon in Aśvin (September-October). Plantains, sugar, rice and sweetmeats are placed in the centre of the pān garden, from which the worshippers retire, but after a little return, and, carrying out the offerings, distribute them among the village children. In Bikrampur the deity invoked on the above date is Suṅgāī, one of the many forms of Bhagavatī.

The reason given by the Bāruis for not engaging the services of a Brāhman is the following:

“A Brāhman was the first cultivator of the betel. Through neglect the plant grew so high that he used his sacred thread to fasten up its tendrils, but as it still shot up faster than he could supply thread, its charge was given to a Kāyasth (writers and village accountants). Hence it is that a Brāhman cannot enter a pān garden without defilement.”^[5]

At the present day some Bāruis have taken to trade, while others are found in Government service or as members of the learned professions. The bulk of the caste, however, follow their traditional occupation. Betel cultivation is a highly specialised business, demanding considerable knowledge and extreme care to rear so delicate a plant. The pān garden (bāṛā, bāṛej) is regarded as an almost sacred spot. Its greatest length is always north and south, while the entrances must be east and west. The enclosure, generally eight feet high, is supported by hijul (Sanskrit, ijjala; Barringtonici acutaṅgula) trees or areca-palms. The former are cut down periodically, but the palms are allowed to grow, as they cast little shade and add materially to the profits of the garden. The sides are closely matted with reeds, jute stalks, or leaves of the date or Palmyra palm, while nal grass is often grown outside to protect the interior from wind and the sun’s rays. The top is not so carefully covered in, wisps of grass being merely tied along the trellis-work over the plants. A sloping footpath leads down the centre of the enclosure, towards which the furrows between the plants trend, and serves to drain off rain as it falls, it being essential for the healthy growth of the plant that the ground be kept dry.

The pān plant is propagated by cuttings, and the only manures used are pāk-māṭī, or decomposed vegetable mould excavated from tanks, and khalī, the refuse of oil-mills. The plant being a fast-growing one, its shoots are loosely tied with grass to upright poles, while thrice a year it is drawn down and coiled at the root. As a low temperature injures the plant, by discolouring the leaves, special care must be taken during the cold season that the enclosure and its valuable contents are properly sheltered. Against vermin no trouble is required, as caterpillars and insects avoid the plant on account of its pungency. Weeds are carefully eradicated, but certain culinary vegetables, such as pepper, varieties of pumpkins and cucumbers, palwal (Trichosanthes diæca) and baiṅgan (egg-plant, Solanum melongena), are permitted to be grown. Pān leaves are plucked throughout the year, but in July and August are most abundant, and therefore cheapest, while a garden, if properly looked after, continues productive from five to ten years. Four pān leaves make one gaṇḍā, and the bīra, or measure by which they are sold, nowadays contains in Eastern Bengal twenty gandas, although formerly it contained twenty-four. In the Bhātī country (Bakargañj) thirty-six gandas go to the bīṛā. Pān leaves are never retailed by the Bārui himself, but are sold wholesale to agents (paikārs), or directly to the pän-sellers.

The varieties of the Piper betle are numerous, but it is probable that in different districts distinct names are given to the same species. The kafūrī or camphor-scented pān, allowed by all natives to be the most delicately flavoured, is grown only at Sunārgaon in Dacca and Mandalghāt in Midnapur for export to Calcutta, where it fetches a fancy price. The next best is the sāñcī, which often sells for four annas a bīṛā. This is of a pale green colour, and if kept for a fortnight loses in pungency and gains flavour. The commoner sorts are the desī, baṅgalā, bhātiāi, dhāldogga, ghās pān, grown best in Bakargañj, and a very large-leaved variety called bubnā. The usual market-price of the inferior kinds is from one to two pice a bīṛā.

It has been mentioned that the bāṛā is regarded as almost sacred, and the superstitious practices in vogue resemble those of the silkworm breeder. The Bārui will not enter it until he has bathed and washed his clothes, while the low-caste man employed in digging is required to bathe before he commences work. Animals found inside are driven out, while women ceremonially unclean dare not enter within the gate. A Brāhman never sets foot inside, and old men have a prejudice against entering it. It has, however, been known to be used for assignations. At the present day individuals belonging to the Dhobā, Caṇḍāl, Kaibartta, Sunārī, and many higher and lower castes, as well as Mohammedans, manage pān gardens, but they omit the ceremonies necessary for preserving the bāṛā clean and unpolluted.

In the Central Provinces and Berar the Bara’īs reside principally in the Amraoti, Buldana, Nagpur, Wardha, Saugor and Jubbulpore districts. The betel-vine is grown principally in the northern districts of Saugor, Damoh and Jubbulpore and in those of Berar and the Nagpur plain. It is noticeable also that the growers and sellers of the betel-vine numbered only 14,000 in 1911 out of 33,000 actual workers of the Bara’ī caste; so that the majority of them are now employed in ordinary agriculture, field labour and other avocations.

Russell^[6] describes a curious custom connected with the remarriage of widows as observed in Betul. The relatives of the widow take the second husband before Māroti’s shrine, where he offers a nut and some betel leaf. He is then taken to the mālguzār’s house and presents to him R.l, 4, a coconut and some betel-vine leaf as the price of his assent to the marriage. If there is a Deshmukh [revenue officer] of the village, a coco-nut and betel leaf are given also to him. The nut offered to Māroti represents the deceased husband’s spirit, and is subsequently placed on a plank and kicked off by the new bridegroom in token of his usurping the other’s place, and finally buried to lay the spirit.

The Bara’īs especially venerate the Nāg, or cobra, and observe the festival of Nāg-Panchmī (Cobra’s fifth), in connection with which the following story is related. Formerly there was no betel-vine on the earth. But when the five Pāṇḍava brothers celebrated the great horse sacrifice after their victory at Hastināpura they wanted some, and so messengers were sent down below the earth, to the residence of the queen of the serpents, in order to try to obtain it. Bāsuki,^[7] the queen of the serpents, obligingly cut off the top joint of her little finger and gave it to the messengers. This was brought up and sown on the earth, and pān creepers grew out of the joint. For this reason the betel-vine has no blossoms or seeds, but the joints of the creepers are cut off and sown, when they sprout afresh; and the betel-vine is called Nāgbel, or the serpent-creeper. On the day of Nāg-Panchmī the Bara’īs go to the bāṛejā with flowers, coco-nuts and other offerings, and worship a stone which is placed in it, and which represents the Nāg or cobra. A goat or sheep is sacrificed and they return home, no leaf of the pān garden being touched on that day. A cup of milk is also left, in the belief that a cobra will come out of the pān garden and drink it. The Bara’īs say that members of their caste are never bitten by cobras, though many of these snakes frequent the gardens on account of the moist coolness and shade which they afford.

The preparation of the “chew” for retail sale is the same as that in the North-Western Provinces. Bīḍās are prepared, consisting of a rolled betel leaf containing areca-nut, catechu and lime, and fastened with a clove. Musk and cardamoms are sometimes added.

Tobacco should be smoked after eating a bīḍā, according to the saying:

“Service without a patron, a young man without a shield, and betel without tobacco are alike savourless.”

Bīḍās are sold at from two to four for a pice (farthing). Women of the caste often retail them, and as many are good-looking they secure more custom; they are also said to have an indifferent reputation. Early in the spring, when they open their shops, they burn some incense before the bamboo basket in which the leaves are kept, to propitiate Lakṣmī, the Goddess of Wealth.

For notes on the Bara’ī and Tambolī castes in Bombay see Enthoven, Tribes and Castes of Bombay, vol. i, pp. 59-65, and vol. iii, pp. 364-369. In the Nizam’s dominions they are dealt with by Syed Siraj Ul Hassan in Castes and Tribes of H.E.H. the Nizam’s Dominions, vol. i, 1920, pp. 28-33 and 596-602. See also G. A. Grierson, Bihar Peasant Life, 2nd edition, 1926, pp. 248-249.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Crooke, Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, vol. i, p. 177.

[2]:

Hindu Tribes and Castes, vol. i, p. 330.

[3]:

See p. 266 of this Appendix.

[4]:

Tribes and Castes of Bengal, vol. i, pp. 72-73.

[5]:

In a note on the passage Crooke ( Religion and Folklore of Northern India, 1926, p. 263) says that this is obviously an ætiological explanation of the taboo against the Brāhman interfering with it, and he is excluded from the vinery probably because his “sanctity” is supposed to exercise an injurious effect on such a tender plant. Cf. the description given above by Fryer.

[6]:

Russell, Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces, vol. ii, 191 6, p. 195.

[7]:

I.e. the serpent-king Vāsuki of ancient Sanskrit literature.